asakiyume

asakiyume, 2 months ago to random

"The Amazon rain forest is not virgin forest--rather it is a vast garden, cultivated by Indigenous people."

YES!

Europeans, used to a European model of land usage, arrived in the Western Hemisphere and didn't recognize that the woodlands and grasslands of North America and the rain forests of South America were not wildernesses, but managed lands.

Thx @TootTropiques for the article! https://theconversation.com/ecologia-a-amazonia-nao-e-uma-floresta-virgem-mas-um-grande-jardim-plantado-culturalmente-pelos-povos-indigenas-225160 #Amazonia #LandUse #Wilderness #indigeneity #IndigenousRights #biodiversity

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

"I came for the treasure. Where's the treasure at? I'm on a schedule."
Everyone chatting by the fountain stopped & stared at the sweating, frowning newcomer.
"Why don't you #dunk your head in the fountain a moment? You'll feel much better."
Reluctantly, the treasure-seeker did as suggested. The water was cold & refreshing. He felt stresses, worries, gripes, and grudges slipping away with his memories as he lifted his head, dazed.
"Feel better now?"
"Y-yes... thank you!" #wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

My nephew shot this video at UMass before being tackled by the police and arrested. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6shuu3ubQl/?igsh=MmU5bjc4anhsd3Ey

asakiyume, 19 days ago to space

In the annals of we-are-all-connected....

Each year, on average 27.7 million tons of Saharan dust, carried on wind currents across the Atlantic, drop into Amazonia, bringing vital phosphorus from the Bodélé Depression in Chad, an ancient lake bed. Amazonia's plant life needs this transoceanic fertilization. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazons-plants/

#Connections #NASA #currents #wind #sahara #amazonia #rain forest
#desert

asakiyume, 1 month ago to climate

On #roast days, when the surface temperature soars to 57 C, we stay underground. Dad wants to move to someplace that's livable aboveground all year round, but Mom doesn't want to leave. "My family's lived here for generations," she says. "Since before there even were roast days."

"So long as the water holds," Dad grumbles. It's the stock answer to "How you doing?"

"Well, water's holding and not too saline." (All right, I guess)

I hope it always holds.

#wss366 #microfiction #ClimateCrisis

asakiyume, 5 months ago to random

The article on New England stone walls in The Conversation (@TheConversationUS) describes the life-patterns that grow up around them. Reminds me of something Conrad Totman, environmental historian & scholar of Japanese history, wrote about the ecosystems at the edges of rice fields. And hedges in England are the same. Micro ecosystems. Thanks, @suzisteffen, for putting it into my timeline! https://theconversation.com/new-england-stone-walls-lie-at-the-intersection-of-history-archaeology-ecology-and-geoscience-and-deserve-a-science-of-their-own-216701

asakiyume, 2 months ago to random

Six-year-old Ami's idea of putting numbers in #order was unusual. She wrote
0 6 9 3 8 2 5 4 7 1.
and explained it like this:
"It's an order from soft & curved to sharp and straight. Zero is a whole soft oval. 6 & 9 try to make curls, & 3 makes double curls. 8 connects the doubles! Then 2 starts to uncurl & makes a sharp point. 5 has that, plus more straight parts. With 4, the curve is gone, & then it gets simpler for 7 & then down to just 1." #wss366 #microfiction #numbers

asakiyume, 3 months ago to random

Accused of rotting the fibers of society, the southern poet An Mei was #exiled to the northern steppes to contemplate her life choices.

"How will you continue in this barren land?" she was asked on her first night on the windy plains. A good question for one whose words of dissent came clothed in the wet heat and ten thousand colors of her tropical district.

"I'll remake myself and my work," she replied, eyes on the vast horizon, the mercilessly bright stars.

#wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

On my travels I came upon an old man in a field, staring up at the sky.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"Today, brightest blue, no clouds. It means come nightfall I'll be able to greet stars located even deep in the heavens."

I stood quietly beside him a few moments more, but his eyes were fixed on the blue bowl above us.

"Are you always here? Don't you get bored?"

He didn't turn his head.

"No, never. This is my calling. I'm #Atlas; I support the heavens with my gaze." #wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 4 months ago to 13thFloor

"We came together in a circle
and together we shared our heat
and the fire grew large
and built its voice in the direction of the heavens
that we might be able to say to this place
in which we were put,
that stretches in so many direction
with such unimaginable darkness,
to say to that infinite vastness,
'We are here as well.'" (+) #storytelling #story #AnnisMojgani https://vimeo.com/102128538?color=13a89e&portrait=0

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

What are the trees talking about? The willows, all turned out in bright new green, are trading gossip. The maples, still in the crinkled, unfolding-butterfly-wing stage of leafing out, are asking questions, all a-wonder. The hickories are popping their leaves out of giant buds like fireworks, and they're that excited. But the #pines, the evergreen pines, they're murmuring about winter. "This is just a warm spell. Wait a bit, a short six months, and it'll be cool again."
#wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 14 Jan: Regardless of the genre you write in, do you bring in ideas from other genres? (take 2!)

OK.

I write whatever I feel pushed to write, in whatever style I feel like, with whatever plot devices, etc., and when I'm done, I take stock. If the finished work is close to a genre but has s/t that's usually not in the genre, possibly I'll take that thing out. Or I may leave it in. It depends on where and how I'm trying to bring the story out.

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

Overnight, a wall of the Family Dollar had been bulldozed, goods taken, & topsoil spread where the wall had fallen.

"What's all this about?" asked a reporter for the Wristborough Reader.

"It's gotta be the Stamen #Syndicate," said the officer. "Fancy themselves real Robin Hoods--if they get wind of wage theft or other worker mistreatment, watch out. And we can't touch the crime scene, or they'll come after us. You wait: in 6 months, this'll be blooming with wildflowers." #wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 1 month ago to apps

Read this story b/c it was on a list of Hugo nominees, and it sounded funny and pointful, and it was both! I laughed out loud several times. "Better Living Through Algorithms," by @naomikritzer https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/ #Hugo2024 #Apps #AI #HumanTouch

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub Complete this phrase: I write because...

I need to quote Leonard Cohen, "A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes"

"I'd like to tell my story"

and later in the song:

"I sing this for the crickets
I sing this for the army
I sing this for your children
And for all who do not need me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZQjekxGEks

asakiyume, 4 months ago to writing

Only two Wandering Shop Stories so far today for the word "temper," and yet it's SUCH A GOOD WORD. Feel like throwing a tale into the pot? Use temper, and tag your story with #wss366. #writing #WritersLife #prompt #microfiction

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

Uncompromising, hard, rich, and sweet: R. T. Ester's "Sleeping Arrangements, in IZ DIGITAL (@IZDigital)"

"‘Heaven’s timing can’t always be known,’ I tell her.

There’s artifice in my voice I have not heard in a long time. I am virtue laid to rest with shame."

--truly powerful story

#SFF #Interzone #HereAtTheEndofAllThings #NaijaDiaspora

https://interzone.digital/sleeping-arrangements/

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

"Do you think 'taste buds' is short for 'taste buddies,' like, little flavor friends in your mouth?" Sean asked.

"Nope. I absolutely do not think so," I said, cutting a #thick slice of bread & slathering it with honey.

"I wonder if you have tons of sweet taste buddies in your mouth," Sean said, watching. "Or hey--what if you have just one lonely sweet taste buddie trying to process all that honey? ... I wonder how they #measure how much sweetness each taste bud gets?"

#wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

Super article on the Lower Sioux's move to build houses out of hempcrete: a green substitute for concrete. Great from the perspective of green technology, housing, and indigenous self-sufficiency. May a multitude of green alternatives to how we build flourish--this among them! #Housing #Sovereignty #Indigenous #Sioux #GreenTechnology #Hemp #Hempcrete

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/hempcrete-indigenous-tribe-minnesota

asakiyume, 2 months ago to random

Solaria, Luna, & Estelle, freshman roommates at Arcturus Academy of Magic Arts, each brought a magical dorm-warming item. Solaria's family were laborers: they gave her a little cookpot that always had food in it.
Luna's father had done well as an accountant with the East Lanka Chamomile Company, & she brought a Sack of Holding out of which she pulled bedding & a wardrobe.
Estelle, however, took the prize with a Grandmother's #Trunk. It contained a whole alphabet of goods. #wss366 #microfiction

asakiyume, 4 months ago to random

"Date with a shifter, yes!" crowed Zuli, rocking from heel to toe. "Who'd I match with? Bear shifter? Puma? Or the classic, a wolf?"

"You matched with a #sloth shifter," said the woman at Growl'n'Purr Matchmakers.

"What?! You're joking."

"Nope. He's waiting thru there."

Dude was in human form & quite good looking, that gentle sloth smile & dark eyes.

"Frantic activity is for entrepreneurs," he remarked. "Other ways of spending time are much nicer. May I show you?"

Zuli smiled. #wss366

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

"It will be in all of us"

My religion ❤️ 🌱 🌺🌿

(screenshots from Annihilation [2018]: Josie turning into flowers)

Screenshot showing Josie walking away from the viewer, toward flowers and long grass, with dimples on her arms where flowers are going to erupt.
Flowers and vines have emerged from Josies neck and arms, she is passing a huge stand of improbably but lovely white and purple flowers.

asakiyume, 1 month ago to random

Refusing to drain the sky

msquebanh, 2 months ago to food

The 3rd largest source of #food carbs, in tropical areas, after rice & maize, is #cassava #tubers. Native to South America, it made its way to many places in Africa, Middle East & Asia nations during early trade times. Nigeria is world's largest producer of this food crop & Thailand is largest exporter of cassava starch. Very drought tolerant, thrives in poor soil & is a #FoodStaple in developing nations.

My family grew them in Vietnam. We've been eating them for generations.

#AsianMastodon

asakiyume, 2 months ago to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 27 March How does it feel knowing strangers will read your work?

I love the idea. I love-love-love connecting with people far away. And it's fun connecting with nearby folks too. It's all good!